A propellant tank is widely used in various spacecrafts, such as a satellite, a spaceship, a space station, a carrier rocket, for its high reliability and long service life in the weightless environment. A core technology of the propellant tank is a propellant management device (abbreviated as PMD) inside the propellant tank. The management ability of the PMD is a key indicator for the performance of the propellant tank. An object of the PMD design is to allow the PMD to convey liquid reliably and without bubbles at any time.
Presently, the PMD of the propellant tank used in the spacecraft, especially in the satellite, is of a mesh-type, which employs screen meshes as capillary components to collect propellant, and employs pipelines to convey the propellant to a liquid outlet of the propellant tank. A limitation of such kind of propellant management devices is gradually shown, and has become an adverse factor limiting the development of the spacecraft industry. The mesh-type PMD has the following disadvantages, such as the capillary mesh has a low structural strength, is easy to be damaged and polluted, and has a low reliability; meanwhile, complicated fluid transport channels are required to be provided, which cause the propellant management device to have a large weight and a low filling speed.
According to the actual condition of orbital operations of the satellite, the propellant tank is not only required to store the propellant in various microgravity environments under a normal condition, but also required to store enough propellant to ensure enough liquid storage amount in extreme cases under various abnormal conditions, for example, in the case that a rotational angular velocity in Z direction (axial direction) is large or an opposite acceleration is large (such case may occur when the satellite rotates around X axis or Y axis), thus it is required to use a new-type liquid storage device, which has a simple structure, a high reliability, a large liquid storage amount, uses less screen mesh and is mainly of a plate structure.
The liquid storage devices are disclosed in different embodiments, and the liquid storage devices disclosed in patent applications No. U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,565A, No. DE10040755A1 and No. U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,398A can also be applied in the propellant tank. For example, a liquid storage device disclosed in the patent application No. U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,565A employs multiple blades uniformly arranged in a radial direction to realize liquid storage and gas-liquid separation, and the liquid storage device has the following disadvantages: the liquid storage amount is small, and it cannot provide enough liquid storage amount without bubbles under extreme cases which may occur (such as the rotational angular velocity of the propellant tank is large, the opposite acceleration is large or a lateral acceleration is large, and etc.). A spherical-crown-like liquid storage device is described in the patent application No. DE10040755A1, a cone-shaped plate is arranged in the liquid storage device, several screen mesh collectors and several guide vanes are arranged in proper areas according to the requirements of the orbital condition, and the liquid storage device has disadvantages of having a complicated structure, using many screen meshes, and having a small liquid storage amount. A liquid storage device is also described in the patent application No. U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,398A, which uses a cone-shaped structure area to store liquid, and has the following disadvantages: a lot of screen meshes are used, and a large amount of bubbles are apt to accumulate on the screen meshes in the liquid storage device; a flow rate of the liquid provided by the liquid storage device is small, and when the flow rate of liquid is set to be too large, the liquid flow inside the liquid storage device is apt to be cut off, which accelerates the accumulation of the bubbles on the screen meshes in the liquid storage device, and the worse case is that the gas will be pressed to pass through the screen meshes; and meanwhile it is not easy to fill and store enough liquid in the liquid storage device under the driving of the surface tension in microgravity environment.